The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 714: Enrolling At Backwoods Uni. with Lake Pickle and 'Old Trapper' Kate

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Steven Rinella talks with Lake Pickle, Kate Lospinoso, Maggie Hudlow, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics Discussed: "Old" young trapper Kate; Lake Pickle’s new podcast, "Backwood's University," is out now on our network; Maggie's article on Why You Should Consider a Mutt as Your Next Hunting Dog; poaching turkey in a cemetery; buying someone else’s taxidermy; the origin of Lake’s name and fishing deer season; hunting the way God made you; looking at bobwhite quail habitat; the wonders of the flying squirrel; how it's rare to be a young, first generation trapper; Old Trapper Kate's Little Shop of Furs; beaver blankets and muskrat bomber jackets; conservation coverage on themeateater.com; and more.  Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Steve Ronella here. The American West with Dan Flores is a new podcast production on the MeatEater Podcast Network. It's hosted by author and historian Dan Flores, who happens to be mine and our own Dr. Randall's former professor. By focusing on deep time, wild animals, native peoples in the

West's unique environments, Flores will challenge your understanding of the American West and he will help to explain why it is the way it is today. I count Dan Flores as a friend. We do not agree on everything, but he has had a massive impact on my understanding of American history and I invite you to get challenged by him in the same way that I have. Catch the premiere of the American West with Dan Flores on Tuesday May 6th on the Meat Eater Podcast Network. Subscribe to the American West with Dan Flores on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen to Dan and it will stretch your brain all out. And I mean that in a very good way. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case underwear-less. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com.

Welcome everybody. Joined today by two super special guests. We've got Lake, well three. I'm feeling Maggie. Am I a super special guests. We got Lake, well three I'm feeling mad It's not like Seth, he's just like It's not like Seth, we're just regular They're here again Seth's just hanging out. No one knows what he's doing I don't even know what i'm doing. Join today by three very special guests Lake Pickle the most memorable name in america I've got three very special guests, Lake Pickle, the most memorable name in America. I was at the, I'm gonna get to the R2 guest,

but I was at this big commencement or like a graduation ceremony last weekend. Yeah. I could tell you why. Congrats, doctor. Go ahead and tell us why. And they were like giving everybody's name. Is there a doctor in the house?

They're giving everybody's name and a guy comes up who had, I believe, changed his last name to extravaganza. I was expecting like a professional wrestler to come across the stage, you know, just a regular dude. Really? I was like, oh, wow, a wrestler's here. Is that. It was just a regular dude. Yeah. I was like, Oh, wow. Wrestlers here. Is that, is that speech? Uh, was that filmed? Yeah.

Is it somewhere I look, tried looking for it. Kylie has it. I was, uh, I was turkey hunting so I couldn't make it, but Kylie has a priority. I think it's going to be put up as a social post or a YouTube. Yeah. I want to see it. It's called, there is no plan B.

I like that. I think I've heard that before from you. Lake Pickle, the most memorable name in America. The hardest name in America, which is Caitlin Lospinoso, which one can see why she just calls herself old Trapper Kate. Am I saying it right? Lospinoso? Lospinoso. Lospinoso. Close enough. Am I saying it right? Lospinoso? Lospinoso. Lospinoso. Close enough. Her handle on, one of my, like a thing I love looking in on is her handle on Instagram is old trapper Kate. It's all about trapping. And other kind of outdoors adventures, which I appreciate. So she's here today. Maggie Hudlow is here today. Journalist extraordinaire. What are you working on right now? That's the most exciting thing. Most exciting thing. We've been having dog week so I've been writing dog stuff

which is fun because I love my dogs and I just got into training a bird dog so I've got a year and a half old pup Bill. What kind is it? He's a lab German wire hair pointer mix. Is that intention or did you get like a pound? Yeah, so I really like mutts. We'll talk about this later. I just wrote an article about why maybe you should consider a mutt to be your next hunting dog. And we got sick of wading through the muck

and falling through the ice to go after our ducks. And we're like, all right, we can get one more dog. And we started looking and somebody had wire hair lab pups and we're like, well, shit, I guess we're getting a dog. That's interesting, man. Yeah. The guy, he had a bunch of bird dogs. He had labs and wire hairs and he was like, yeah, I was always interested to see what they would end up like mixed. And he's a good dog. He's huge. He's a big boy. He's kind of goofy. Lake saw him.

Tell him what he did the first day I was here. That was the funniest thing I've seen all week. Lake saw him run full speed into a glass door the other day. Yeah, but I've done that. Me too. He can still be a good hunting dog. that. He's a little disgruntled. He, uh, the glass in our house isn't that clean. I guess that dog was so embarrassed. Shame. Man, I've been meaning to spend a long time kind of explaining my buddy dog Doug Duren's new lab, but it's just too...

Mark? You know about this dog? Yeah. Yeah. What about him? Do you like Mark? Do you not like Mark? Listen, man, I think that Doug can't see it.

Doug can't see it, but I think that dog got hit on the head. I have never seen a dog that's so not aware of how dogs are supposed to be. Like any normal, like I've been around 50 years old, man. I've been looking at dogs my whole life. We used to have all kinds of dogs when I was a kid. This dog, there's like certain just things in the dog playbook, right? Like if you're driving all around out in the woods and a dog is in like a can am, you drive it all around and you get to an interesting spot. Everybody jumps out.

Kids are like catching crappies, whatever. He's like, he doesn't get out. Do you want me like any dog in the world would be like, well, dude, I'm going to get out and see what everybody's doing. He goes into a house. He doesn't go check what's going on around. Interesting. That might be a good thing.

He just kind of chills out. Yeah. And Doug can't Doug's like, Doug's like, if you said to someone, if someone had a baby and you said, man, I don't think that baby's not right, they're not gonna take that well. Do you know what I'm saying? Do you know what I'm saying? He's got love goggles.

He does. Doug's feelings are getting hurt listening to this show. If he's like, if the thing's sitting in the side by side, and he's like, come on. You gotta pull, and Doug won't pull it out. I'll pull it out. I'll grab, I can't handle it. He'll go grab it by the collar and pull it out. Doug will come in the house.

So there'll be a house full of people. Doug will pull up. Doug will come in the house. He leaves the door open. And you 20 minutes later, a dog sitting in there. It's like, it's like amazing. It's one of the few dogs you could put it and just it'll be there when you come back. That'd be handy in some situations.

That'd be like one of those dogs you see in Montana, it's just on the flatbed. Yeah. And you like go into a bar or whatever and they're like the dog's just out on the flatbed. No, this is different. Different than that. This is different. That's like obedience. I know this is not.

Not obedience. Cause I forgot to mention, Doug is imploring the dog to come out. Oh. Oh. Yeah, it's different. Maybe it just likes comfort. Maybe he ran into a glass window.

He's gonna be pissed that I'm saying this, man. Cause like, if I just, if you, you know, if you disagree with Doug on something like CWD or something, he's gonna write you a mean ass email so I can only imagine what he's thinking right now. I mean, hack him out of his dog mark. You insult a man's dog. Them's fighting words.

You know, my old dog shooter made me believe in reincarnation because for one, I'm pretty sure this dog smoked way too many Marlboro Reds in his past life. He's got a real smoker's hack and the vets are like, nothing's wrong with him. He also has favorite songs. He loves the band, Cripple Creek. He just perks right up to that and just yowls. It's amazing.

You should introduce him to this dog, Mark. So my theory from what I've heard on Mark is maybe Mark was like a big fat dude that just likes to ride around in can-ams and like drink a beer and just sit in the truck. You know, you never know what a dog's past life was. No, you might get a nice email from Doug because he's gonna, he's gonna, I never talked to him about reincarnation, but this is gonna, this is gonna speak to Doug. This is gonna speak to Doug. This is gonna speak to Doug.

Oh my God. Lake, I forgot to mention, besides having a very memorable name, Lake is an avid outdoorsman. Used to be tangled up in the old days with Will Primos, which is super cool. Yeah, I was for about a decade. God, man.

And I love that guy. Oh man. He's great. He was like, the way I explained to folks, like when I grew up, in my house you watched the Andy Griffith show and Primo's VHS tapes. That's just what you watched. Like he was especially like living in Mississippi. And you've been around Will,

like if he heard me talking about him like this, he would dismiss it because he's a pretty down to earth dude. But yeah, and it's funny talking about my name. Like part of the reason I ended up getting tangled up with Will, just a little stuff that happened before, but I saw Brad Ferris at a local sporting show at home and I'd never met him in person,

but I'd been emailing him trying to get a job. And he remembered your name. One thing I've always had going for me, someone might forget everything else about me, but they remember the name. So I go up to him. I said, hey, I'm Lake pickle you're like you're that kid that's been emailing me about video and I was like, yeah and I Didn't know it at the time but like the week before they had some guys leave the video department Huh? So two days later at my phone rings and it's Brad and he's like, hey man Would you consider taking a semester off school?

Cause I got to film at Elkhart in like two weeks. I was like, yep, I'm going to do that. And dropped out of school. So funny thing is, yeah, I went to the Primo's office. I'd never met Will in person and they were interviewing me and Will comes in and he says, I'm not going to hire you. If you don't promise me that you'll finish your education. Hmm. So yeah, I was in school for wildlife science and that kind of stuff.

But um, yeah, that's how it all started. But it all hinged on Brad being like, Oh yeah, you're the kid because he, my name's so odd. He remembered it. That's great. Yeah. Um, so you did wildlife still in the wildlife business. Yep. June 9th. You will find Lake Pickle on the Bear Grease podcast feed with a new show we're doing called Backwoods University. And we'll talk a little bit about that. We talked about old Trapper Kate. We're going to jump ahead to the news.

Then we're going to come back around. Um, Cren's got's all assed up. Oh Are we returning sorry, no, no, I I didn't get to talk to you about this I wondered if we would change the order of things this time, but maybe that's all okay. So that part wasn't No, it's another remember No So that part wasn't asked. No, because I have to remember. No. I can see just getting rid of, I can see just not having any news ever. Yep.

That that's possible. But then how would I find out about the news? Brody. Brody and the website. We should have a, I wish we could do one of those polls. Like should we not have any news and then do a vote oh we could make something like that happen in the poll oh can you do it on a newsletter we could do it on Instagram it'd be like should the meat eater podcast have or not have listener

feedback and news yeah I think they'd be sad about not having listener feedback and news. Yeah. I think they'd be sad about not having listener feedback. Yeah. Cause then we wouldn't have like stories and jokes that carry on for a few episodes, but what do I know? I just think we should separate it. Like news is separate from. I don't think we can ever get rid of news. Well, the problem with the news program here is that we have the same news article

we had before in the news. We already covered the guy that killed the, that's in trouble for hunting the cemetery. I have additional thoughts. Doug might like if you got rid of the news, then he wouldn't have to write it. He wouldn't have to get mad about it. He would try.

Unless you start dissing his dog. But we just had the main interview be about his dog. But then, instead of the news, it's updates about Doug's dog. We wouldn't touch on CWD as much as we do. I know, it'd save me a lot of Doug's ire, but then how would we goof on his dog unless we like focused, we had a dog psychologist in to goof on Doug's dog.

We should get dog psychologists in. So the guy, some emerging details. Are you going to follow this? Cause I'm just interested in this Turkey deal. Yeah. What I had explained before is like, I feel it's between the guy and the people that are dead in the cemetery.

Largely. They don't have much to say. If I was buried in a cemetery and I knew someone was turkey hunting the cemetery, I would be glad. But then I learned while he was hunting there, there were visitors in the cemetery. Which tips, right? Like at a point you have to, like you gotta, when you're sitting there at night being like, man, I really want to hunt the cemetery. And you think to yourself, would the people in there, you know, would the souls in there, how would they feel about it?

And that's kind of regional. And then there's, how would the people visiting those people feel about it? What would the mourners think? Because if I was visiting a cemetery and I see a guy hunting turkeys, I'm gonna be jealous. And what do jealous people do? They lash out.

Yeah. That's true. And they don't lash out about being jealous, they think of another thing. And then they're gonna lash out about public safety. But the biggest question I have is, was he bushwhacking him? Because he got dropped off by a late model black full-sized pickup. So did he get dropped off to the call or did he get dropped off to Bushwhack?

And did he use tombstones? Like how you might use brown bales to sneak up on something. You almost can't be mad about it at that point. Also, I wanna know the nature of the visitors. Like was someone getting, actively getting buried? Yeah, was this like a fresh burial? Or was this like a year anniversary thing? Were they turkey scouting? Maybe they were turkey scouting.

Maybe. Oh gosh. It happened on Mother's Day. Oh. Ooh. Oh no. Was this like a, Yeah. It's in New Hampshire. Is this like a private cemetery?

Doesn't say, but it says you're not allowed to hunt cemeteries. I guess it won't matter. Except for the ones in public, I'm assuming. I recently cut through a cemetery and jumped a fence to get down to a creek. Cool. I used to stand next to a turkey or stand next to a cemetery and listen for turkeys all the time. There you go. Well, like we're saying,

if you see an old church or a cemetery, there's a turkey around. That's a rule of thumb at home. Does it have to be abandoned? No, I mean, it is a rule of thumb that I'm telling you we live and die by. Like if it's an old church or a cemetery, there is a turkey around there. I've never seen it not be true.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I can see that, man. Maybe it's the abundance of bug life. The cemetery I want to get buried in. I think that that'd probably be true of that. Yeah. We saw squirrels back there, but I was pre-turkey.

Like there weren't turkeys when I was growing up, but there's turkeys now, you know? Yeah. There's a, there's a place where my grandma and grandpa got buried and I got permission to hunt the land right behind it. From them. Yeah, I know they would be okay with it. But that was the first time it happened to me. Like I pulled up to the cemetery like I was going to visit their grave and like, as I pull up, there's a turkey goblin right behind it. I was like, I gotta see if I can get access to me. Like I pulled up to the cemetery like I was going to visit their grave and like as I pull up there's a turkey goblin right behind it. I was like I gotta see if I can get access to that. There's a hot tip off. You start asking for permission post-mortem.

Yep. Yeah, talk to him. I know. And be like, hey, you know, I know like, uh, you're not feeling well. Listen. It's a crying shame what happened. But oh, I can picture dudes now just sitting, like trying to like make fake tears and stuff, just listening for gobbles, trying to be like they're mourning. This happened on what, how the guy got in trouble is somehow he hits the bird, you know, like the saying, you can't stop the flop,

but he desires to stop the flop, stop the flop, but he desires to stop the flop, tackles it, and thereby gets himself on camera. People claim he's rasslin' it, but it would've been more accurate if journalists had explained that he was trying to stop the flop, which you can't do. You can't. Was it like a bad shot, and was kind of getting away a bit?

I think he was trying to- It was just like the classic sprint out to it. I don't know. My guess is he was raising a ruckus as they do and he was trying to stop the flop and people think he was trying to wrestle it. Cause there's like visitors, he already shot. He's trying to be incognito by launching on the turkey.

And when they go to flopping, it is, I mean, it's a racket. It's quite loud. Not as loud as the shotgun blast. Was he on the shotgun? Do we know? You know what? This doesn't seem like an archery kind of deal, but I could be wrong. Anyone with information on this incident, this is serious. Please contact New Hampshire's Fish and Game Department. This is also- You can make Hampshire's Fish and Game Department. This is also-

You can make an anonymous tip. And us. Just another one of those things where like this guy chose to post this video. What I understand- He didn't choose- he didn't post his own video. What I understand is that there was like, there was a hunter at the cemetery, someone who self identifies as a hunter. Okay.

Because this, according to New Hampshire Game and Fish, around 10am on that Sunday, a hunter observed a male in camouflage apparel shoot a turkey in the cemetery on Clough Road. The poacher was dropped off by a late model black full size. So that guy was looking for turkeys in the cemetery. Yeah, he was jealous. Jealous. Jealousy. Allegedly.

I think we need to get all, if Corinne was like a good producer. She'd have the, right now we'd have the hunter. We'd have the, right now we'd have the hunter, we'd have the witness, and we'd have the family of who was in the closest grave. Yeah. We'd have the star. We'd have whoever was in the closest grave.

Really, hell. I can't believe I didn't think of that. And it'll all be here arguing about it. We'd have the casket that he was standing over. Here's the, this guy's got an interesting problem. There's a guy that saying that for whatever reason he's a, he's a magnet for poachers to come confess to him. Interesting.

I just think that's being alive. Like that's not unusual. Like I confess old poaching stuff every time I'm talking to anybody. Really? When we were kids, when we were little kids, like we didn't, it wasn't, it's just hard to explain. You didn't know, you just did stuff. You didn't know if it was legal.

Do people go and do you get a lot of confessions? Yes, because, okay, when I started deer hunting, I wasn't old enough to hunt deer. When I killed my first deer, I wasn't old enough. My mom came and put her tag on it. But it was like, you would have told anybody. There was no, there was, it was just like, I can't explain it, it's just how it was. Some of the examples he uses though,

I'm not sure that these are people just talking about stuff that they did a really long time ago. I'm just looking at one of the examples he cites and it's almost like someone feels naughty. Let me hit the examples, but I want to make one more point. You know how I've been hip to that veterans institute, they play the interviews with the World War II veterans, guys are in their 80s and 90s. It's the best thing on YouTube well, I like world's greatest hockey goals and slow motion, but um Next to the world's greatest hockey goals and slow motion

The American Veterans Institute Did this has this huge series of interviews with World War Two guys in their 80s and 90s. They're down watching. I think I talked about this. I'm watching two of these guys together and they're talking about they would just kill SS. They would line them up and shoot him and he, we weren't supposed to talk about it,

it was a long time ago. And he's like, we were told to do that. Right? So you get a lot of like, I will, because we grew up violating, but it wasn't like, it's just, it's so hard to explain, man. Pass the statute of limitations. It's like a common ground kind of thing

in the hunting community. When I was growing up, same for you, you just, you didn't even know it was illegal. The shit, the stuff you were doing. Or you just didn't even know of the like, you didn't know the severity or the implication or anything. Nothing serious. When I first got on X,

I went and looked at all the old places where I used to hunt and it's all private. It's like I thought this was legit thought it was public land. Yeah. I remember like, like just being young, you know, like teens and hunting wood ducks on the roost and it looking like a fourth of July display by the time the wood ducks would come into that roost and you were sort of like you, it's just like, but that's what all the guy, like the old, like your mentors. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

It was just, you were sort of. Well, yeah. Cause the, the, the farther you go back in the timeline of hunting, the like. The gray or all that gets. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Another, another thing that was just like, just another confession here. I am doing all these confessions. There's another thing. Leading up to the largemouth bass opener, you would put your

livewell out on the end of your dock and you would detain them to then flay them on the opener. But it was like, this isn't like you weren't like, shh, totality buddy. Yeah. It was just like, this is what we do. Walk down the beach, holding the large mouth by the bottom lip and throw it in the live well. And like your parents, like our parents, you know, I mean, people weren't like, don't it's so hard to explain, man. It's so hard to explain the, then only later did I start to put it all together. I see that you get like in your twenties and you start whatever,

meeting people, reading, reading sand County Almanac, which like, you start putting it all together and you're like, Oh man, that's like not, like if everybody ran around doing that with that level of like passion. Yeah. You end up with the early 1900s. Yeah. It's been disastrous, but it was just like, you weren't, none of this, like, I never, no one ever, ever said the word conservation when I was a kid. Steve Rinella here, the American West with Dan Flores is a new podcast production on the MeatEater Podcast Network. It's hosted by author and historian, Dan Flores, who happens to be mine

and our own Dr. Randall's former professor. By focusing on deep time, wild animals, native peoples in the West's unique environments, Flores will challenge your understanding of the American West and he will help to explain why it is the way it is today. I count Dan Flores as a friend. We do not agree on everything, but he has had a massive impact on my understanding of

American history and I invite you to get challenged by him in the same way that I have. Catch the premiere of the American West with Dan Flores on Tuesday, May 6th on the MeatEater Podcast Network. Subscribe to the American West with Dan Flores on Apple, Spotify, iHeart or wherever you get your podcast, listen to Dan and it will stretch your brain all out. And I mean that in a very good way. Well, look at, look at the examples. Okay.

He says poachers apparently see my BHA and meteor merch and think quote, and this is, these quotes are so specific. So you know, someone told him this quote, I'm going to tell this guy about unlicensed night hunting in a day hunting only state for game that's out of season and I don't have a tag anyway. Or quote, let me tell you how I pulled a fast one by hunting against regulations on a military base and got away with the trespassing citation instead of any real consequences. Ha ha. You know what they're trying to do?

They're trying to get on Clay's Bear Grease podcast. That might actually be true. But they don't realize that they have to have redemption. Like when I was 15, Clay wouldn't had me on. He would have had to wait till I was later had an epiphany and we would have stopped like our casual violating. Well I mean this guy is just wondering like what what would you all do? Would you, he tries to educate and you know these are instances that had happened in the past and he said that in case he sniffed that there was any sense of a crime being

about to be committed, he would say something, but asking for advice. Is this what this podcast is turning into? Confessions. Confessions. Put up a little board. It's like, I'm just, the more I think about it, the more I'm interested in what our, like I want to go back and interview our younger selves.

So high school, okay, like just just give you for instance, high school with my late friend Eric Kern, smelt dipping. For whatever reason, like Sam would come in with the smelt during the spring smelt run. One day we're standing out there, we weren't at a river mouth, like you generally hit and smelt at the river mouths, but we knew about these gravel beds that were way down on Lake Michigan, and the smelt would come up and spawn in these little gravel beds that weren't even in the stream mouth. They're like an anadromous fish, but they would sometimes spawn in the waves. And we're sitting there, and here comes a salmon chasing smelt, and Eric gets in his dip and that. We're old enough to know that he ought to put that salmon in his waders and he puts the salmon down the

leg of his waders to hide it and we like finished our smelt dip and had a big laugh about how slimy and his pants were. And we're like old enough to drive. And there's no way I would let my kid do that. I would wring his neck. Just, I don't know. I can't explain it. Different times. Yeah. Guy wants to know if it's stolen valor to put,

to buy taxidermy and decorate your cabin. Yes. It's an easy one. Hard stop. Unless it's like a crazy, like a less it's like a specimen. Huh? You're killing my market. Like a Jackalope.

What's that? What if it's like a Jackalope that's not stolen by her? Okay. Taxidermy. Yeah. Like I think if you bought, you know, if you're like a big deer hunter and you bought a, like a big, you know, and then he kind of got it hunter and you bought a like a big, you know, and then you kind of got it there.

And you know what it is, do people coming in think that you got it? True. If someone asks like, did you shoot that? What's your answer? So a real good friend of mine, he used to tell me how comically bad his father was at hunting.

And the first time I went to his father's house, I walked into his living room. This is a true story. And there was like several shoulder mounted deer. And then there was a shoulder mounted elk in there. And I was like, Jordan, you said your dad was bad at hunting. He said, oh, he didn't kill any of these. Bought all of them off eBay.

It's deeply nuanced because someday, like my father's taxidermy is still in my mother's home. Someday, heaven forbid, I will take possession of my father's taxidermy and I will put it somewhere. That's different. Does that count? Yeah, I don't think so. It's deeply nuanced.

Or if you had something where you're like oh yeah Wyatt Earp shot that buck you know or whatever it'd be like a specimen but if people come in and go like my god this guy's gotten some tanks and then you don't say anything you just let that thought linger. So I have a European skull mounted elk that I did not kill in my house it's the first bull that I filmed Wilbur shoot and he asked me he said do you want this elk? That's okay. And I was like, absolutely, but everybody that comes in the house They're like when I'm like will shot that out. I mean like I make a plaque. Yeah But then you tell the true story. Oh, yeah, but Johnny's Johnny has his dad's bull moose hanging in his living room Yeah, totally fine. Yeah, totally. That's not stolen Valor.

Yeah, Dirk has one of your coos, dear. Hmm. You gave it to him. Yeah, but Dirk's like a special guy. You know what I'm saying? It's not stolen Valor. He was there. He filmed it. Yeah, I think we're talking like if you go to like some kind of thrift shop and they have like someone's random estate sale taxidermy.

I don't know if you can anymore. You used to legitimately go on eBay and buy taxidermy. Oh no, you still can. Yeah, it's like, it's like, earlier I said yes, but I'm realizing how complicated it just depends on the motive and what you're trying to get away with. If you're trying to be like, give visitors the impression, it's one thing. Well, all right. Here's an example. If you just bought a big mansion in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, you went down to this shop that has all the taxidermy for sale for thousands of dollars

and you buy a big old elk head and put it in your big house that looks right at the Tetons. Stolen Baller, okay. And you bought a cowboy hat. That's Stolen Baller. What about furs? No. Yeah?

No, I don't think so. I'm showing my biases. It's just different. It's different. Um, guy has a moral bind. Well, let me give you a good example. I got a friend, very accomplished hunter. Okay.

He's got a display of every male and female of all North American waterfowl that he got. That's awesome. But he also has a big collection of many fur bears from around the continent. He would, he will be like, that's from so-and-so, that's from so-and-so. He's got one, he goes, someone left this

because they knew I have a collection and they remain anonymous I don't even know who gave it to me Wow so it's just different it's like it's like a educational display do you follow me yeah where he's like check all the stuff but he doesn't clean none of its his stuff but he's he likes to yeah you know he grew up trapping he likes to have the stuff, he grew up trapping. He likes to have the stuff there, but it's not his first. Cause my main buyers are like the oddities market and they just like having them as like a novelty, like a novelty wall hanger.

They're like, Yeah, I'm not trying to screw your business. Take it easy, Steve. Here's a guy, I haven't read this yet, but he's in a moral bind. He lives in Eastern Wisconsin, far from Doug sounds like. Avid bow hunter.

One of my close buddies owns a local tree farm and is currently planting new trees. This is a quote. He recently got a crop damage tag to take five deer in 45 days as the deer are eating his newly planted trees. At first I was excited to get the bow out. However, he has sent me videos of the deer are eating his newly planted trees. At first I was excited to get the bow out. However, he has sent me videos of the deer pretty much walking up to him.

The chase in which bow hunting, it's not a great sentence. I think he means bow hunting is about the chase. I'm just saying it. Oh no, no, it's like a very, it's like bad syntax, but it makes sense. The chase in which bow hunting is about is gone. Like a few commas could have salvaged that sentence.

I don't feel like taking five deer will help the problem. And it's all very likely to take a deer holding fawns. However, he puts a lot of pride into his farm. And I've even helped with planning and witness firsthand the hard work that goes into it. Does going forward with this pretty much give up all the ethics we believe as hunters? No, of course not. Or am I looking to that was me editorializing and he has another rhetorical question. No, it's a serious question. Or am I looking too much into, and ultimately it's just simply what is protecting his crop?

I think ethics is not really the right word there at all. No, there's an outlet for the, if there's an outlet for the deer, you want it, your body wants it, your church wants it. And the guy's got a crop damage permit and it's white tail deer, which last I checked in Wisconsin are above objective. I still see it being an issue. It's not that serious.

Don't see it being an issue. One more. Is this the last one? Another news bit. So in Alabama, this is from Alabama, the bill ALHB 509 passed the house and is moving to the Senate.

This bill led by the captive deer industry, which this person writing in claims that folks high up in the state legislature have family ties to the captive deer industry. I can't say that's true or not. He's just saying that's true. They wanted to declare high fence deer. So they wanna make captive deer private property

instead of public. Some people might be surprised that it's already this way. deer private property instead of public. Okay? Some people might be surprised that it's already this way. Depends on what state you're in. Some states, if you have captive deer, you can just do whatever you want. You hunt them year round, you do whatever you want with them. Some states, if you have high fence deer,

you still gotta go by deer law. They wanna switch it and they want their pet deer to be livestock so they can do whatever they want. They don't want them to be wildlife. Why would they care? You can think of all kinds of reasons they'd care, because now they can hunt them whenever they want, and do whatever they want,

and kill as many as they want, whatever. But the main thing is, they're trying to get out from under regulation and inspections that would keep their captive deer, which I'm not saying, I'm sure like CWD is in Alabama, they want, they don't want the state messing with them about the risk that their captive deer are going to spread diseases to wild herds. So they're trying to get free of that and get out of inspection services. That's what's in the back of their head. That's all. It's tricky. It's dirty. It is a tricky one, man. Because I'm

just suspicious of captive deer, like in general, but I also get the argument that if it's in a fence and it's captive, it's like, whatever. But they get out of the fences. They do frequently. That's that's one of the problems. It that was it strikes a little close to home because Alabama's right next to Mississippi. Okay. What's your take on it? I don't like it. I don't like it at all. Tell me more. I mean,

CWD, obviously a problem there. I have a problem, I mean like I get the, they're in the fence, like they're not, I mean they do get out, but I hinge on the thing, like even without the CWD argument, it's like the wildlife belong to the people, they're a public resource, like saying that you can put a fence around that and all of a sudden that deer and everything in there becomes your private property, I don't like that at all. And then there's just been a lot of stuff going on around home with CWD lately.

That's not, I mean, it's never good, right? But we had a, there was a case that popped up along the Mississippi River in Louisiana, but going off CWD management guidelines, it would have put part of Claiborne County Mississippi in CWD management. Well there's a dude on our Wildlife Commission that was like why would a Louisiana deer make this go into CWD management the rivers right there disregarding the fact that those deer swim the river all the time and so they had this boat and they were you know and you know, within like a couple months, they have a CWD case show up

in Claiborne County. You kidding me? No, dead serious. And so, and obviously, you know, CWD is a very controversial topic, but. Oh, it is. And seeing that and using it as like a, if they pass that, then they could get around some of the CWD stuff and I could just so very easily seeing that and using it as like a if they pass that then they could get around some of the CWD stuff and I could just so very easily seeing that hopping over into Mississippi because there's some high fences there too and I just don't like it too close to home Yeah Well, and there's a lot to learn about CWD so much but we certainly know that Concentrated areas of animals are one of the worst things that we can have.

So promoting that and making that easier is not helping the CWD case at all. Yeah, and moving cervids has proven to be problematic, but a lot of the cervWD is that you that really put the nicks on elk recovery. Because as they're like regulating relocating servants it's ground down that you're gonna take out from source populations and bring them into new places because people aren't wanting to transport servants around. And now we have CWD on all of our feed grounds because the elk are in feed grounds. It's getting messier by the minute. There was a the late Jim Posowitz who was he was from Montana and he wrote these little pamphlets that you give kids when

like if your kid goes through hunter safety with the state you might he might wind up with these Jim these Jim Posowitz pamphlets like um, I can't remember what they're called, just little like sort of things about ethics of hunting and stuff. He was a hunter, he was like a philosopher about hunting ethics. And he was always very suspicious of the captive servant industry

and was involved when Montana, when it went to a vote in Montana, and Montana rejected canned hunting on captive servant facilities, overwhelmingly. Jim Poswitz was very involved in that fight. And he had this interesting point about it, which is like, if you look at the captive deer and elk industry, there's a friction because

this isn't proposing legislation, this is just like an observation of his. What gives those captive animals their value is the social value that the wild version has. Do you know what I mean? It's like what excites someone about growing a big buck is the social value that a big buck in its wild form has. Meaning if you went and got a, you know, if you went and got a sheep and you figured out to make a little ram, a little domestic ram have like slightly bigger horns. People are not, that's not exciting to people because there's not a social value attached to wildlife

that you're trying to mimic, right? You're in a way subverting the thing that has social value to build a sort of artificial version of the thing that people are excited about in the first place. So he just questioned it from a philosophical angle, you know? It'd be similar to, I'm not gonna think of a bunch of things that'd be similar to this, insulting to bring it up, so nevermind. Now I'm intrigued. Worse than Doug's dog? I was gonna make a, I was gonna make an analogy to what

some people refer to as the oldest profession. Oh. 10-4. Loud and clear. I got it, yeah we got it. Some people argue it's hunting. I don't know. All right. So let your Central Mississippi, grew up Central Mississippi. What was your, how'd you get into, how'd you get into hunting? Man, I mean, you're kind of, you're put into it early just because Central Mississippi is just kind of, just kind of the common thing around there. Everybody hunts or fishes to some degree. just kind of the common thing around there. Everybody hunts or fishes to some degree. But my dad is, describe my dad, he hunts a little bit and fishes a lot.

That's where the name Lake came from. So my dad's an obsessed fisherman. Oh, I would have named you Crick Pickle. That's fair. Dill. That's really good. So like we were, you know, we fast fished a lot. Like I was telling you earlier about, you know, my dad,

it was like mandatory that me and my brother learned how to throw a bait cast. You know, we fished a whole lot. And then deer season would come around and, you know, the rifle opener and maybe other one week into year, and then opener, duff season, and all these big thing down there. But that was about the extent of it you guys would fish during hunting season Oh, yeah

Yeah like like that you shouldn't be allowed to do like Fishing is the end-all be-all like that when I was first getting into turkey on and skipping a little head ahead here But like I remember one of the first morning turkey hunting they're like trying to hear a turkey and there's like a Little pond down below and dad's like I wonder if I got a buzzbait in my truck. I mean that's all he's thinking about. So and

Turkey hunting is a huge down home. And so I'd heard some buddies like at church and stuff talking about turkey under in the spring It's like the cradle of turkey hunting. Oh,, yeah, but I just didn't get that early because my dad wasn't a turkey hunter. And then this is a true story. People think I'm being hyperbolic, but it's true. We were on a family vacation thing over spring break and we stopped at a Bass Pro shop and they were doing these seminars and there was a Primos pro staff guy wheeled out this TV and I was a kid so like oh it's on the TV and he plays a turkey hunt and I was like holy smokes that looks wild so I start when I'm at church on Sunday I start like sourcing out people I'm like will you take me turkey hunting because because like my dad was willing to do it but my dad was like I have no idea what

I'm doing you know and thank the Lord, I found a guy still close friends with him to this day, a guy named Keith Polk. And Keith was like... That sounds like a good turkey hunter. Oh man. Keith Polk. 100%. Yeah.

Yeah. Keith is a man. Yeah. I probably owe that guy a lot. But he talked to my parents and they were like, hey, you mind if I take Lake Turkey out and over Mississippi Youth weekend? And they were like, please take you mind if I take Lake Turkey out and over Mississippi youth weekend? And they were like, please take Lake Turkey hunting. It's all the kid talks about and so he rolls up Saturday morning the youth season takes me Turkey on and

we end up shooting a bird and I like Literally, I've not stopped ever since I still I mean I could how old were you then 12? Yeah, I could I can close my eyes and still picture that turkey strutting down that ridge. It was just burned into my brain. I could, I never, and I once, I remember thinking, like, because I was only, I was only 12. I remember shooting that turkey and we're carrying him out of the woods and I'm like, you're telling me I could have been doing this the whole other 11 years of my life. I just, and, and that led to everything else. Like I got into bow hunting and, uh, really got into Turkey on and, um, yeah, it just, it all spurred, kiss Turkey on was the catalyst of all of it.

Isn't that funny that you got turned down to Turkey hunting, watching a pre most video that went on to make how how many Primos videos did you work on? Probably dozens and dozens and dozens. I mean, I was there for, I mean, nine years and some changes just south of 10 years. I don't know, man. It was, yeah, it's all my, what I tell people is like my whole life has been like just the series of like, how in the world did I even end up here kind of thing? But yeah, I will Primos and I remember the first time I took you on Will was kind of funny,

but I would watch Primos videos like I was watching game film, you know, trying to, I was like, what did he do? Cause I told Will like, oh yeah, I told Will one time, I mean, this was years ago, I said, Will, I used to watch those videos and I would listen to a like calling Kate cadence And I would rewind it and listen to it over and over and over again and try to mimic it, huh? Yeah muscle memory. Yeah, yeah

Cuz I mean like 10 I just I didn't know what I was doing and then even after I got that first bird with Keith Like there was still a whole lot of like you got to put it together for yourself kind of thing. Yeah But yeah, yeah, it was I was like Willprimos was and the whole Primos crew man. They were like they might as well hung the moon for me When you when you work in there and you get your check what's it say Primos on it? Yeah, it did. Yeah. Yeah You think I like bow I've said his for not said to his face One of the things I like will wills very good communicator. Yeah, but To my awareness. I've never heard him say a negative word

Man, he's just like about anybody. I'll tell you a story about will like uh he's just like about anybody. I'll tell you a story about will like He's so like Used to say like you hear people say there's people that want you to succeed There's people that don't want you to succeed like or will like goes over and above over and beyond like wanting to people wanting people to succeed and I had been at Primos for people wanting people to succeed and I had been at Primos for three or four years and been hunting with Will a lot so we got to know him and and he came by the office one day in the middle of the week and I saw him for like a minute

maybe two minutes just he was just in and out and that weekend is a Saturday morning my phone rings it's Will not uncommon and I answer the phone he's like hey I need some help over at the house you mind coming over not uncommon I'm like yeah sure right up there he's not usually if he called me is like And answer the phone. He's like, Hey, I need some help over the house. You mind coming over? Not uncommon. I'm like, yeah, sure. Right up there. He's not usually if he called me is like something out in his yard, but he wasn't out in his yard. Like, huh. So we're knocking his door and he's like just standing in casual clothes.

I come inside, get some coffee. And at this point, I'm like, oh, what did I do? I fire you. I fire you like a man. He says, he says, man, get some coffee and go sit in the office. And so I sit in the office that coffee. I'm like, what in the world did I do it like my wheels are spinning and He comes in there and he sits down and he says Lake and I came in the office this week I could tell something was bothering you. I don't know what it was, but you and me we're gonna sit here

We're gonna talk about it till we figure it out because I don't like seeing you that way. Hmm. That's just Kind of duty is because I don't like seeing you that way. That's just kind of do what he is. What was it though? It was like a breakup or something. Like that's something minuscule, but it just meant the world that he cared that much. You're married now. How long have you been married? Three years in July.

Kids? No kids. Two dogs. That's the thing about Will. There's like a I've encountered a bunch of people like this. Well, I'm gonna return to my commencement address I gave the other day. The no plan B address. Yeah. What I was talking about was like people trying to pick what the selecting your plan a for now, pick a plan a and kill the plan B's.

Cause you'll get seduced by your plan B. It'll just be easier and you'll get, it'll seduce you. And I put it in terms of like cliff jumping and watching my daughter pick a real high cliff in Hawaii that she was going to jump off into the plunge pool at a waterfall. And then you could see in her mind just wishing she hadn't climbed out on that cliff. But there she is now. Yeah. And like most people get on the ledge and they quickly would go down and find another ledge and jump. But she just couldn't. She picked it and there she was. And now she had to cope with the selection and how intimidating it was being up there.

And I was talking about, there's people, when you're on your plan A ledge, there's people that want you to come off that ledge bad. And there's people that want you to do it and they want you to break it back when you hit the water. Yep. Do you follow me? Oh, a hundred percent.

And that's the sense I get from him. Another dude that has that, like, he doesn't talk about it, but he has it like, like to unbelievable degree is, uh, Joe Rogan. You know, he gets into podcasting early and encourages all of his friends to start a podcast. He opens a comedy club in Austin. You'd think that if someone wanted to open a comedy club down the road on the street, you'd be like, damn it. He's like, awesome.

It's different ways of viewing the world. Man, and that's one of the biggest things I got from Will, so this podcast, it all kind of all started. Clay came down to Turkey with me and Will for a few days and then we just kind of kept going every spring and hunting other stuff. And Will and Clay became buddies, Clay and I became buddies.

But when all this happened, we were working on the first episode of Backwoods University. And it just so worked out, I was like, Will would actually be a perfect guest on this. So I call Will, and I tell him, I don't just say, hey, I need to interview you. I tell him, hey man, I got this opportunity, this new podcast is gonna be on Clay's feed,

and Will is ecstatic. Not to be on the interview, he's just like, man, that's so great, and just cleared out, and he's pretty, he stays busy, that guy, but cleared out a time for me to come and make that happen just because that's just how he is, man. He's like, how can I help push you up the hill?

Yeah, that's the sense I got watching. That's how he is, man, with everybody, not just me. Like he's just that kind of guy. Well, talk about the podcast, what it's gonna be like. So Backwoods University, very wildlife biology based but also like Clay, we were kind of putting together a list of like topics and episodes we would do and I was like Clay, there's not a species of wildlife because we're doing some episodes just

kind of like an overarching view of a certain species. And then we're doing some that's like getting more specific and like wildlife processes or whatever. And I was like, Clay, there's not any of these that I can talk about where you can't mention the influence of humans on these animals, positive or negative. But the influence is usually very strong one way or the other. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not so great. But that's what it's kind of focusing in on.

Yeah, nothing has escaped us. No, it's, man, I was talking to the quail biologist named James Martin, and he was talking about some of the strongholds in the Southeast. And he was talking about, he's talking about some of the strongholds in the southeast. And he was talking about like, uh, he started by a particular stronghold. I said, man, why, why was that? Was it a habitat thing? Was it this, that, and the other said, that's where the railroad stopped.

Oh, you're kidding me. Yeah. He's like, he's like, if the, if the railroad would have kept going, the stronghold would have been somewhere else. We had an anthropologist on recently and we're talking about the pleistocene extinctions, and he was saying there's a really good formula for places where megafauna,

like large, there's a really good formula for places where large mammals continue to exist. There's never enough people there to get them all. And he starts like rattling off cases of like refugia, where things like managed to survive, it's like managed to survive, because the human population, it couldn't support a bit,

no, it was more than that. It wasn't just happen chance. It was just places that weren't gonna support a large human population at a certain time. It's astounding, man. Like there's an episode that I'm working on right now that delves into the state of Mississippi, because Mississippi is one of the last states

to put in a formal game and fish agency and they've established laws and that's when Leupold made his trip down there and he wrote a report in 1929 where he basically just goes over the status of all these game animals and it's astounding especially like now the the white-tailed deer population in Mississippi now is like like 1.5 million. Our game agency is asking, they're imploring hunters, please shoot more deer. We have too many. When Loophold was there in 1929 in his report, it was estimated we had 1200 deer in the entire state.

You've got to be kidding. It was that bad down there? Wow. It's wild. And talking about turkey hunting being the epicenter of turkey hunting culture, which I would argue that it is, which I'm biased, but one of the first, like we established a game and fish agency in 1932. One of the first things they started working on was wild turkeys because Lou Pold wrote in his report. He was like,

you all have wiped out almost all of your turkeys. He said, I can't, I'll butcher it, but it was like the uplandland stop the turkeys left in the uplands are gone The only thing you have left are in the swamps because humans couldn't get to them Yeah, but it's like going through it and like how bad and it wasn't from a lot of it was during the great great depression and people weren't They're mainly just this is how I feed my family. But again, it's just like really trying to grasp how heavy of an influence we have, it's wild. What are the first episodes gonna be?

We've got one on Bison, but Bison in the Eastern United States. Oh, yeah. Then we've got that one. Did you talk to Ted Franken, Blue? I didn't, we referenced his book a lot. I actually talked to a guy named Jeremy French. He worked for Duane Estes. The coolest part of that whole process is Jeremy took me to a property where they're doing a lot of prairie restoration. And I didn't know it. He said

he said from the original Cumberland settlements, they digitized a bunch of that. They'd mapped out the Buffalo trails. And so there's a place on that property. I mean, it looks like someone drove a bulldozer through it. He said, there's your bison trail. You can still see it. And we walked down there, stood in and it was crazy. But that was a fun episode.

We're doing one on Bob White Quail. And then the one that I was just talking about, I referenced loophole a lot, but the subject of the story is actually a woman named Fanny Cook, which again, I'm biased, but I would argue she's one of the greatest conservationists to ever live because she was pretty much the first wildlife biologist in the state of Mississippi. And she fought to establish the game and fish commission. There's, there's not like hard evidence of it, but there's reasonable evidence that she's the one that got loophole to come down and make the report. She's pretty incredible woman.

Have you, has anybody in Mississippi ever gotten a full body mossy oak tattoo or real tree tattoo? Yes. Yes there is. Because it's hot. Oh my god. Y'all run around in that stuff all the time anyway? Somebody one time we were at a local sports show and like Primos used to have these logos, like they had like these little bitty individual animal logos.

And this dude just runs up to the Primos booth that he was like, check this out. And he pulled up his sleeve and he has the Primos turkey logo on his arm. But no full body sleeve camo. So you can just hunt. That'd be a good idea. Just hunt the way God made you. We should start selling temporary tattoos. So is your, is backwards university going to have like, um, um, how far north will you allow yourself to go? Oh, I'm going like, you'll do Yankee stuff.

Oh, 100%. That's like, it's just been regional right now just because it's just where Clay's got. You know, he's got like, you know, Clay will say stuff like, well, you know, people in the south are very interested in music. I'm like, oh, wow. It's like, you know what I mean? People in the South, you know, they love their families. It's like every day he talks to me, he tells you something. I'm like, oh, wow, we wouldn't know about that. You know, music is very important in Southern culture.

I'm like, I don't know, you know, you ever heard of Motown? I don't know. Yeah. No, I've actually, while I've been up here, I've interviewed some grizzly folks. So yeah, yeah, we're not- So you can talk to Yankees. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, I'm trying to go continental wide. Yeah. Okay, good. Not going to talk to foreigners, but you will talk to Yankees. Yeah, that's it. No Canadians, get out of here. Draw the line there. And then what's the frequency you're shooting for? Bi-weekly right now, yep.

Okay. Yep. Good, man. How long will an episode be? Man, I think the first couple ones anywhere between like 30 and 40 minutes. And you're gonna hear interviews. Yeah, it's basically like we ended up landing on,

it's kind of a bear grease format just condensed. Like the quail episode has Wilbur in it and then a guy named Dr. Mark McConnell. Oh yeah because he's a big quail hunter. Man again such a, I've known Will for over 10 years at this point and when he was sharing like because what I was going for is I wanted to get a scope from what happened to Bob White Quail from a biologist perspective. But then like Will, like some of his first hunting experiences

was hunting with his uncle when he was eight. And so like a real sense of what the culture was like. So you get kind of a balance. You get biology, but then you get hunting culture. The human dimensions. Yeah, for sure. Can I make a episode recommendation? Please. I think you should go, I'm dead serious. Okay. It'd be a lot of fun. I think you should go to Wisconsin,

team up with Doug Dern, but he can't be all the way in it, but team up with Doug Dern way in it, but team up with Doug Dern and go around bars in Southwest Wisconsin and interview people, interview anyone in a bar that can tell you about what's wrong with deer management. That would be interesting. It would be a really, I think it would be deeply entertaining and very informative. That would be, you would get such a disparate view of the state of deer man. Like it doesn't need to be Wisconsin, but it needs to be like, it needs to be someplace where there's a lot of factors at play. Um, you know, like increased

predation, uh, where there's a lot of slot in the soup. Yeah. Just a lot of the stew. You know, like, like, let's say you went to an area where you're kind of on the Southern edge of, of Wolf expansion and you got CWD in the mix and whatever and do like deer biology according to dudes and Marks, man, you actually, like deer biology according to dudes and bars. Bar biology. Bar biology.

That's a whole new podcast. You're kicking me down a whole line of thought because you could do the same thing, like again, like Southeast. If I went around to, and was like, hey man, what's going on with wild turkeys? You would get such a wide spectrum of answers. Bar biology.

Oh man, it's the fire ants. But I tell people that. I quit drinking. You would get such a widespread of answers, man. The only bummer is I don't drink. I'd have to go in there, like, I'm just gonna sit in there and drink water, hoping to come in. I'll be like, Lake's in town? I'm gonna go down to the bar. Just hang bar. I need to get interviewed for this show. Bar biology. Man, Steve seemed toasted in that one. He must have been just drinking straight vodka. Yeah, it's so funny. I was like, he's so high. I'm like, no, I'm not. Yeah, that'd be a good one. That is a good idea. It might work so good you could do more, but yeah, just like, hey man, what's, like if you went in and chill, don't go on a weekend, don't go way late, don't go mega late. You want the dudes that are in there at 8 p.m.

Yeah. Yeah. Post dinner, pre, right? The happy hour crowd. Yeah. Yeah. Go in chill and be like, hey man, I'm just trying to get, I'm just trying to get everybody's perspectives.

I'd love to just, I'm trying to just get like, I don't want the agency guys, I don't want the government guys, I want to hear the guys on the ground. The guys in the field. The guys in the field. Meaning in the bar. The guys that were once in the field. Like what's going on man? What's going on with turkeys? Non-resonance, wolves, everything. wolves, residents, poachers, fishing game. Man. That sounds like my average call with a landowner.

Yeah. Let's talk about that. Um, let's talk about what you do as a research tech, but hit me with the dates and everything Lake Pickles, backwoods university, June 6th, Bear Grylls podcast feed. Tune in. And video on YouTube. Learn all kinds of stuff about wildlife. Yeah. Start with the quail.

Starting with me and Crenner in hot water with the quail community. I don't know if you know this. I've I've heard I've heard. Why is that? The quail community should listen to your two episodes. Cause we did a thing and we had a guy on. It was a guy that knows what's wrong with Quail. And there's a, it's a rich stew.

I talked to the biologist about it. Yeah. It's a, yeah, I'm aware. All the people wrote in from their bar stools to let us know. We had a guy, there's an alarming decline in Bob White Quail numbers, which has been going on for a long time across an enormous geographic area.

We had a person talking about his feelings about what's happening to quail in a relatively isolated geographic area and has a proposed solution that in some people's minds does not adequately address the root cause. And to hear him out is bad. Right? Yeah, yeah, it pretty much sums it Right, yeah, yeah, it's pretty much something I did learn you want the the first noted declines that they can find in the in the North America You know what it was?

You tell me where no when like when the first notable declines of Bob Whitequill Barroom declines or like decline declines? From the biologists. Like what? What's the question again? When were the first noted declines? The first statistically significant declines? Yeah.

1920. 1890. Wow. Industrial revolution. That's pretty close really. Yeah, most people, now if you wanna go back to the bar room side, it's like everyone normally says 1966, but they started doing brood surveys in the 1960s.

So that's why they say that. So where does the data come from? I don't know. I'd have to go back and listen to that interview again. Well you just learned this the other day. Yeah, yeah. Barstool biology. And they had- I hope we don't get sued I'd have to go back and listen to that interview again. Or you just learned this the other day. Yeah. Yeah. Barstool biology. And they had-

I hope we don't get sued by Barstool Sports. No, it's Barbiology. Barbiology. Yeah, yeah. You gotta leave off the stool. He's a kind of anti-hunter. Is he? Yeah, I've always wanted to have him on. Dave Portnoy?

Oh, I didn't know who he is. I didn't know he was anti-hunter. What about Barstool Outdoors and all that? Well, Portnoy is kind of, I guess he like, I think he's kind of like waffles on the edge of humane society kind of stuff. I'd look at him on if he's listening. Probably not. It'd be weird if he was. He likes pizza. Just sitting there stewing like Doug. Yeah, like if Dave comes on, if you come on, I'll buy, I'll take you around and you can get all kinds of pizza. We got common ground in pizza. Yeah, I'll take you around and you can get all kinds of pizza. We got Common Ground and pizza.

Yeah, I'll take you. Yeah, he probably hasn't done pizza reviews in Bozeman. No, you can do like a whole, dude, come on. You know who loves pizza? People in the South. Yeah, they're okay. Do they? Southern folks, yeah.

They don't eat pizza down there. I don't know about Yankees, but the South, yeah, they love it. You know what you guys are on to? Is boiling them peanuts. Oh man. I didn't even know that was unique to us until there was someone from out of town that was like boiled. Oh the Asians do that.

Yeah I had no idea. I remember going to South Carolina and the guy I was with pulled over and get a hot sopping wet steamy bag of peanuts. They're so good. I was like dude that's good man. So there was a fella used to have he had setup, and you had to drive right past him if you're going to the local Sporting Good store. He had his old pickup truck, he'd have a little pop-up tent out there, and he'd be boiling peanuts with jalapenos in them. And you'd pull up to him, you'd roll down the window, and he'd walk up to you and he'd say, you want a big fat bag or a little fat bag? Did he wear a trench coat? Oh no, he had overalls on. All right, old Trapper Kate.

Yes. Thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for the invite. Yeah, well, I just wanted to talk to you because you like trapping. Yep. But first tell me, what do you do at Kansas State? Yeah, so I'm a research technician. So doing out in the field, doing the down and dirty work for all the research projects. Started on an elk survey when I first got into town, moved over to flying squirrels.

Really? Is that a demotion? You know, it depends who you ask I think It was it was cool, I mean flying squirrels are cool. Yeah, tell me something about flying squirrels I don't really know much about them few people do know but They love suet cakes. Mm-hmm. That's how we would bait them in for the cameras got peanut butter suet cakes. So they'll eat meat Well, I guess that's an interesting. Well, no, in fact, I know they do because they'll turn up, they'll get on the Martin sets. Oh yeah.

So they like meat. Yeah. And I think all squirrels are kind of opportunistic omnivores in that way. But yeah, suet cakes, and we would do camera traps to try to survey them during the summer. And then sort of a nest box kind of set up to get colonies in the winter and that's when you go in and tag them because they're all holed up together. Oh, really?

In these little nest boxes and so yeah, you just kind of sneak up to the box, cover the entrance. And how many are in there? Oh gosh, there could be like five or six, I think. Oh, that's gotta be cute. Yeah, oh my gosh, they they are adorable those big old eyes. But yeah and then I got moved over to the Turkey Project in September of 23. So I've been doing that doing that since then. And what's that looking at? Oh gosh everything. So it's statewide and we're looking at resource selection, just kind of general landscape scale,

where are they going, what are they like, what does it look like they're preferentially kind of selecting for. Roost tree selection. Oh yeah, which is actually pretty interesting seeing the difference between like the western side of the stage, just kind of across that longitudinal gradient. You mean in what in what types of trees they want to be in? The height of the tree, the diameter of the tree, the species, like everything kind of there. So we're doing... In that area, how apt is a turkey to use the same tree two nights in a row. Oh gosh. It depends on the region. Cause the farther west you go,

the fewer their options are for like a suitable size and just anything that's like, that can reasonably hold. So they're more, they have more roost fidelity in the west versus the East. That's like just observationally, that's been my finding where, I mean, it's kind of obvious, but places where there's not any trees, I remember down in Sonora, Mexico,

where there's just the only possible roost tree is a sycamore growth in a canyon bottom. So like, no kidding. Yeah. Like, because within 10 miles, it's just the sycamore growth. And so they're like a magnet. But we hunted in Colorado this year and got to kind of watch different groups.

I mean, they would be, they would be 800 yards, 900 yards, these different groups every day. Like no sense of going back to where they came from. But it's tons of ponderoses. Yeah, so many options. Yeah. So that's kind of, that is kind of what we're seeing there. They drift around. Yeah. When they have like the, when you're in like the bigger kind of woodlots or bigger, bigger creek bottoms, river bottoms in the East, they'll kind of move around a little bit on a rotation or just kind of have,'ll bust bust off into like different groups

Within one flock and kind of end up on different roofs each night. Do you guys go find out what killed them when they die? Oh, that's impossible. Oh, it is they get scavenged so hard so fast, huh? It's really hard to tell like what exactly got him That's a tough one. It's so hard. Same with the nests, like they get scavenged so fast that trying to pinpoint exactly why a nest failed or if it was actually predated or if it was just abandoned and then scavenged afterwards like unless you're literally sitting there like 24-7 watching that nest's, it's almost impossible to tell.

You can kind of tell like what ate the egg, like if the egg was eaten, like if you just find like eggshell, you can kind of tell what ate it. But whether or not it was like the hen abandoned it first and then something else found it. After she got killed and therefore she got killed or she just we've noticed that they just sometimes they just walk away Because what would cause them to do that? We're not sure They'll ditch it. They'll just ditch it. Yeah, but you feel like a couple eggs and then just ditch it. Yeah Too stressful or who knows? Yeah, who knows? Yeah, it's it's interesting But yeah, I never knew I didn't realize that the forensics is tough on turkeys. It is so tough

I mean, they're like there's such a nice little snack for just about anything that, you know, if they're out there longer than 24 hours before you get there, it's the odds of something finding, finding the body. Yeah. Cause you show up and some possums sitting there that doesn't tell you what happened. Yeah, you don't. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that's why like a lot of studies, people are like wanting to put cameras on the nest, but just like having that camera there and the smell of the camera and stuff is that that increases the risk of predation because a lot of predators will actually key in on that little bit of human scent.

Like they'll key in on the scent of another predator in that one specific spot, and they actually learn, okay, there's something there. And so you're increasing the risk of predation on this nest by putting a camera there. But that's really the only way to know exactly what happened. So we're kind of stuck in a dead zone there of not really being able to exactly say what happened. I've talked to guys that work on coloring studies where they're

coloring at, you know, big game animals with big visible. Colors that are probably hard to get used to. Yeah. And it's, I mean, they factor in and it's an open question, but once you do that, how accurate is the mortality study? Because when something's chasing or whatever, or they recognize something's wrong with that thing. Something's different, yeah.

Do you know what I mean? However they read that color. Yep. Yeah, so we have on the hens that we're tagging, we have backpack transmitters, and they're slick and they're black. They're not obvious, but you have to be careful about how it affects the movement of that hen.

You have to make sure she has full extension of her wings. Like, it's not, you only put them on hens that are hefty enough. It can't be over a certain percent of their body weight. Otherwise, it's gonna impact their ability to get up in a roost and it's just gonna wear on them like having that Walking around with that weight But we also we also ditch all the data from anything that dies within two weeks of capture Oh that like if it's a mortality that could be directly related to either

Stress or like something to do with the transmitter. Yeah, that starts to address what I'm getting at. You could just never get used to it. Yeah, yeah. So that's typical with any kind of collaring, any kind of tagging study. It's like, if you have a mortality within a certain window of time after the capture, you just omit it from the data because you just write it off as a capture related mortality. Like you freaked it out too bad or whatever. Yeah, they can get like capture myopathy just like their muscles just melt basically from

the stress. Oh really? Yeah, and they just kind of can't move anymore. You know what I'm remembering right now, and I meant to put it on Instagram, but like I totally forgot about till you just said it to me, is a guy wrote us, wrote us in and he had been out hunting and found a turkey nest. Yeah. And put a camera on it. And man, do you remember, did you, has anybody else seen this video? Well, I don't think I have. I don't know what it was.

It was like 12 hours later, it was a coyote standing there eating all those eggs. Right away. Yeah, yeah. And so part of this study is a wide scale camera, wide scale camera survey for predators. And this is like not related to the turkey location. So we're just based on the capture locations.

We're doing like a broad kind of placement, random placement of cameras around the capture sites, just to kind of see what the predator communities are in those areas. So you're just hanging out. Yeah. And then we'll try to kind of see if there's a correlation between what the predator communities look like

and what happened to those tur, like what kind of patterns we saw in the turkeys in those areas. But I noticed going through, I mean we have 600 plus camera sites per survey season and we're on our third now. So there's, I mean, over 500,000 photos at this point. And I noticed going through those photos that immediately after the cameras would be deployed Like if there was gonna be a bobcat on that camera, it was usually like that night. Like what is that? They just smell why is it not repelling them their cats are cats especially are so curious Like coyotes are a little more wary And this is actually a big thing with trapping, like cat trapping versus coyote trapping.

You can be really flashy with cats and they'll, they'll come in cause they, they're more prone to just investigate. So they have a lot more confidence. So when they like smell that human scent in a random area that they don't normally smell it, like they come right into it. Some association with humans and food. Yeah. Or they're just like, what's going on? Like just curious. Yeah, so I noticed that like really quickly.

I'm like the first thing on most of these cameras, like if there's gonna be, if there's a cat on it, it's gonna be like the first thing that's on there. It's really interesting. Have you ever had the ethical issue of, you got all these turkeys running around. How do you view that it would influence your hunting activities? Oh my God.

I, I don't pay attention to it at all. Like I have, I did so much turkey hunting before I got on this project that I like already had spots picked out and stuff on public to where, you know, it's far removed from anywhere we have turkeys tagged and I have like no desire to go anywhere near those tagged turkeys. So yeah, I just, I hunt the spots that I found, you know, way before I got involved. No insider trading. I got a friend that worked on, he's worked on some wolf collaring project. He's a pilot. He has no access to the data, but he's a pilot for the thing. But he's also a wolf trapper. And he says, man, I go the other direction.

Because I don't even have access, but just what people will say. Because I don't, anything that happened when I worked on that, I go the other way. Cause just perception. Yeah. And just for real, like I wouldn't, I would be kind of bummed. Like if I shot a Tom and it had a tag on it that I'm like, I could have tagged that Tom for sure. Yeah. You know what's puzzling is, um, I brought this up a bunch of times over the years that like, like, would you shoot a, if you saw a collared whitetail, would you want to shoot a collared deer? Being like where I am now,

like actually involved in the kind of wildlife tagging business. I don't, I would say I don't really have a desire. Like that would probably make me less likely to want to shoot that one. Which I know is you're not supposed to do that for the science of it, but like I definitely am not more inclined to shoot a tagged animal. Yeah. The, which is, which people bring up was like, why it's so coveted to get a tagged duck or a tagged goose. But people don't want some collar on a deer.

Yeah. It's like, it's like hard to explain, man. Cause I feel like the deer has been, uh, not corrupted, but he's like, he's lost his, he's lost his, yeah, he's lost his wild juju. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. You have the image in your head of some, someone like tackling this deer.

Yeah. It just feels like you're not, you're not like the first person on the scene. You know, there's been some other person, yeah. Monkey in with it. You know, like there's not a lot of, there's at least one bit of mystery in that deer's life that is like no more. Yeah. You're like, I know at least one thing that happened.

Yeah, he got manhandled. Do you guys ever have, or with all your collaring projects or tagging projects, do you ever have, get a mortality and then, or get whatever and go there and be like, someone shot this thing, like someone poached the turkey. Um, you know, I don't think we've had that issue yet. Like it turns up. I remember talking to a guy that was in a cow or in a turkey. You don't call it

collaring. What do you call it? Tagging? Um, well, we use an unscientific term of transmittering. term of transmittering. His transmitter turkey wound up in the middle of a wood stack. Missing its breast. Yeah, there's a clue. That one you could probably figure out what happened to it. Yeah, they like buried it in their own wood pile. The fan's gone, the beard's gone. What killed this guy, I wonder? I feel like they were telling me that it was, at that time I feel like they were telling me it was glued onto it. Glued into the feathers, is that not right?

That's not right. If that happened, that was not a good idea. Yeah, I feel like they were super gluing, they were super gluing it into its feathers. When was this? How long ago? When did I have this conversation? Over 10 years ago.

I wonder. He's still alive. I don't know if that was. He's still alive for what it's worth. I wanna say that that was never supposed to be the standard for putting transmitters on. We do use super glue, but we use super glue. So we use marine shotcord

to make like the, it's kind of like a, it's almost like a, if a bungee and paracord made a baby. I got you. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. What do you call it? Marine? Marine shotcord, just marine grade so it can stand up to the weather and everything. Marine shot cord, just marine grade so it can stand up to the weather and everything. So we use that to make the, make like the little backpack straps. And then when we knot it, use like a surgical knot to tie it off. Then we'll put super glue on that knot, but we put like a piece of cardboard underneath so that none of the super glue gets on the feathers. Cause you don't want that. And you do not want to glue the transmitter to the bird. Well, this might have been the pioneering days of Turkey. Maybe, yeah, that's why I'm like, you know, I don't know.

Maybe we got to this strategy because the old one of super gluing them directly to the bird turned out to not be a great idea. Yeah, might be a band. So what's your like, well, I want to get into your trap and business too, but how does, how's your career, how's your career path going? What happens to you next?

Yeah. So I, I always knew I was going to go into some kind of science and some kind of like biological science. I was always super interested in the outdoors and like insects and birds and all kinds of things like that was just always my jam and So I knew when it came time to think about okay What kind of degree do I want to get I was like slam dunk while some kind of wildlife biology? environmental science something like that So I graduated in December of 21 with a wildlife biology degree.

Immediately went into a TA job for that program, which was just like a temporary thing. I went to NC State. There's a mandatory summer program for all of the wildlife biology folks. And it's six weeks in the field. You go and do like hands-on IDs and tagging and all kinds of stuff. It's super cool So that was my first job out of undergrad was that TA job and then I moved to Kansas and found my way into the the wildlife The wildlife departments there

And that's when I got into the elk the elk and that's just like a salary job, full-time salary job. It is hourly. That was. Yeah. Most, most tech jobs are hourly. Um, but you know, it's, it's like always just 40 hours. You just put in 40 hours a week. And that's what you're still doing now. Yes.

And then what happens next? Um, ideally, um, I would absolutely love to turn trapping somehow into a full-time business of like trapping, fur handling, uh, taxidermy, at least like I've tried to dabble in like actual mounts and stuff. Um, I still have a lot to learn there, but, uh, I had a dermistid colony. Uh, I just moved really recently, so I don't

have it set up again yet, but I had a dermistid colony. I just moved really recently, so I don't have it set up again yet. But I had a dermistid colony and that was like a really good kind of side gig to run was skull cleaning. Sure. And for my own skulls that I got from from trapping and everything, I sell sell all those. So I would just, you know, run them through the beetles and and sell them. You don't have it now. Now I got to get it started back up again.

I don't have like a great place to set up. You know, you know how they smell. Oh my God. The dermisid colonies. So like- It's like nothing, it's like nothing you've ever smelled. Yeah. Yeah.

There's probably like things, little tricks you can do. Oh yeah. But I've been to some that are just horrific. Yeah. If you have like the right ventilation system, that's the biggest thing. Like you have to have it really well ventilated. They create their own kind of funk, man. Yes, and God forbid you get flies in it. Somehow the beetles don't smell that bad if you haven't ventilated right,

but if maggots get in there, I don't know what it is about a maggot. They just smell so much worse. Well, they probably come in on people bringing in maggotty stuff. Yeah, that's the problem. and like you can't really kill a Matt like you can freeze the skulls like indefinitely and it feels like the second you thought the maggots Don't just pop out like it just doesn't kill them So yeah, you got to be careful about like not leaving skulls out where they're gonna get flies you know on them and and you got to be careful about the because I did I took in I took in a skull at some point That had been left out where it got maggots in it and it just destroyed the colony

Those I mean you just got yeah, you just got a ditch it and started start fresh You have to kill all those thousands of lives. Yeah. Yeah Let's say I got a hypothetical for you, let's say you're at Meteor Trivia and the answer to the question is Dermasted. Okay. And someone, and you're the judge and someone writes Dermifted. Would you give it to them? Dermifted? Um, I probably would.

It's a good thing you're not the judge then. Dude, I gotta revisit. There's like, what else could you be going for? Right? Exactly my point. Yeah. I'm guessing that you said Dermifted. That was me, yeah. And I did not get it. You're asking for a friend. I did not get it. Yeah, that for a friend. Did not get it. Yeah, that's, I call bullshit on that one. You're changing your answer? No, no, no, no, no. I call bullshit on

not giving it to you. Yeah. All right. So, so get me to, how'd you get into trapping? So- Because there's not a lot of young trappers. No. There's not a lot of female trappers. Yes. And not a lot of first generation trappers. Yeah There's not a lot of female trappers. Yes, and not a lot of first generation trappers. Yeah. I remember a startling statistic from Michigan. I never looked to see if it's true, but the guy that told me would know. He's like, he was telling me that,

and this is some years ago, he said that every year, the average age of a trapper in Michigan goes up a year. The more you think about that, dude, it's like stunning. Yes. Yeah. So I just like never really hit a limit with what I want to do in the outdoors.

Like I've taught myself pretty much everything. I'm kind of in the same boat as Lake where, you know, my dad was like a casual deer hunter, but really into fishing and my mom as well. So I grew up fishing a ton and I was just obsessed with it. And my dad would go out, you know, a couple of times, a couple of times a season, go walk around. He literally would just go for a hike with a gun

and just hope he bumped into something. Yeah, like deer hunting. Yeah. So he didn't even, he didn't get his first deer until I was, I want to say I was like six or something. And my mom like wouldn't let me go anywhere. And she's like, don't look, don't look. I don't want it like keep the meat away.

Like, no, I don't want her seeing this. She thought it traumatized you. Yeah. She herself was kind of like, I don't like this. Um, but yeah, the more, the more and more I got into fishing, um, the more I was like, I just wanted something else. And the natural next step was like, oh, you know,

what about hunting? And my dad's like, I don't know, kind of same with you and the about hunting? And my dad's like, I don't know, kind of same with you and the turkey hunting. Like my dad's like, I don't know what I'm doing. So he took me to an outfitter, got my first deer. He was like super nervous that I was gonna be turned off when I shot my first deer, I was gonna have like a emotional breakdown or something,

but I was so stoked. I shot two on my first hunt, the last like afternoon after sitting in in cold rain the whole time. Where did he take you to go on a guided deer hunt? Northeastern North Carolina. I was actually born in New Jersey, lived there until I was six. We fished a lot up north, did a lot of fishing up in upstate New York and stuff, just worm and bobber. No move down to North Carolina and we could not get on fish to save our lives. Like we could not catch a thing. Like your old tricks weren't working. No, I mean, there was no trick

like up North. I mean, we would just take any kind of live bait and chuck it in there and you'd catch like a nice smally or yellow perch or something, like there was just nothing to it. And yeah, I get down to North Carolina, it's this like muddy ass water. We're like sitting there with like minnows and stuff. We're like, why can't we catch anything? And everybody was kind of giving up. Like my parents were like not interested anymore.

My dad's like, I think I'm gonna sell the boat. And I was like, this can't happen. Like I just loved it so much. And so I was like, I gotta figure this out. And that's when I got into bass fishing. Cause I was like researching, you know, what kind of fishing is good around here and large mouth bass.

So then I started learning how to fish artificial, learned how to use a bait caster and ended up getting really into that. And then that was what led me into, like when I got super into bass fishing, I was like there's got to be something I can do You know in the in the winter when like bass fishing is not like super fun and I know someone might be making a face at that because there are a lot of people that fish bass in the winter out there and For me I was like I love fishing like the weed beds in the summer.

That was my thing. And I'm like, I want something to do in the winter, fall and winter. So it just seemed like if I like fishing so much, I probably will like hunting. And so got into hunting. And then when I kind of got my feet under myself with hunting, then I started to find myself being like, okay, but what about, what about like after deer season and before turkey season? The February problem. Yes, exactly. I was, I'm sitting there like, you know, I can go shed hunting or just hike around. I'm like, it's just not really scratching that itch for me. And I actually watched the beaver

trapping episode, the Wyoming beaver trapping episode, and I was like, hmm. Well, that was a long time ago. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I wonder. And this creek bottom that I had been hunting on public for deer for several years, this beautiful swamp bottom full of beavers. And I was like, that seems like a very easy first step

is just trying to snare a beaver in that creek. I'm like I know what like the back of my hand like I can get in get out pretty easily. Snares are like a super straightforward thing to use. They were legal there only for beaver but yeah so I went in beginning of January and this was in 2021. I went in, made all my sets, two nights later got my first fever. With a snare. With a snare. And it was just like, it just clicked.

I was like, this is it. Like, this is the thing. It just felt so natural. And so like, it was like a kind of a puzzle that hunting doesn't really give you. And it was like exactly what I'd been craving. Um, so I went so hard that season. I think I ended up getting 11 beavers out of that little creek bottom.

I got a couple otter, which is awesome. And snares? Um, no, so you're not allowed to use snares for otters there. I started using 330s after I got kind of confident with, uh, cause at first when I was looking at a 330, I was like, Oh, that's terrifying. Like my arms gonna come off. So once I got a little more comfortable, I got some 330s and I put those out. And so I got a couple otter. And then kind of towards the end of the season, I started trying raccoon too, because there's so many raccoons, any creek bottoms full of raccoons. What'd you do with your otters? I put, I just skinned them out.

I actually have all of the otters. I've only gotten three otters because, you know, that place was stacked with them. Kansas is not. So I wasn't in North Carolina very long before I moved to Kansas and I only got three and I just love otters so much. I'm like, I couldn't let go of them.

So I have all three of those pellets up on my wall. Yeah. And then now you got, then you got in like pretty sophisticated like bobcats and stuff. Yes, like top tier top tier traffic Yes, which is amazing. That was like Super unexpected to me. I mean I knew everyone always says like if you can catch a coyote You can catch a cat like cats are just so much more confident and so much more predictable Really and so much more not and so much more predictable really. And so much more not as many of them running around.

Well, yes, that is, yeah. So like I'm always getting more numbers of coyotes than cats, like if I'm running a pretty even line. But like if I find a cat track, it's like I'm gonna get that cat. Hmm. Like you can just be so much more confident if you have the right equipment. Within how many nights? You find a cat track in Kansas, within how many nights he's going to, you're going to have them. That's tough. I would say within a week because they do kind of run, they usually run kind of a

loop within their territory. Same with coyotes. So like, if I see like super fresh sign, I'm like, okay, maybe I'm like a little bit behind here and it's going to take, you know, four or five nights before that cat comes back around. Yeah. But he's going to come and walk in that spot. Yep. He's going to come right back through there and he is going to clue in on any kind of new smell, anything in there. And yeah. And like you can put out, cats are one of the few things that

you can like just drop a cage right there. And they're just like, looks good to me and just walk right in. And a lot of times like, even when the cage closes on them, they're like, oh well, and they'll just eat the rest of the bait and they'll just lay down. Yeah. So were you selling your bobcats this year on the open market or do you, everything you sell yourself, you sell yourself to your own customers? No. So if I get like a really, really nice cat, um, I prefer to sell them frozen whole, um, taxidermy trade. Um, and they care about whether it's nice. Yes.

They, well, they care about the spotting. That's really the big thing. So it's not, it's not really the length of the fur when you're selling to taxidermy market, it's the, the, the, uh, pattern and the coloration. They want nice spots. They want nice spots. Not just the belly, but the body. The body, yeah.

Like you can have a super plain belly, but if it's got like awesome spots and like the rosettes and stuff down at sides and it's back like that's, cause they want something that's gonna be, they're usually buying these to make competition mounts. And so they want something that's like really striking, like super eye catching.

And even like kittens, a lot of times like kittens are, are really hot on the market. Um, what? Yeah. If, if like they'll, they'll sell so fast and you can get a decent chunk of change for them because it's like a, if you can get a kitten mount, like really, really nice, super realistic, it's so good in a competition. You know, when I was growing up, the worst thing you could do to an auditor is touch it with a knife. Yeah.

The taxidermy trade was hot for them. Yeah, it still is. And it'd be like, it'd be way more money. Yep, yeah. It wasn't even like, it was just a completely separate deal. Yeah. Did you have that? Like, did you sell stuff Seth to taxidermy? I never did. No, but I knew people who did. Like every once in a while,

someone would catch like a black coyote or black red fox. Yep. Um, those typically went to a taxidermy. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. You put all that work into it. Like you can put all that work into an otter. Yep. Flash it, stretch it. Yep. 25 bucks. It's worth more just on the round. Freeze it and Like you can put all that work into an Otter. Yep. Flash it, stretch it. Yep. 25 bucks. It's worth more just on the round. Freeze it and bring it to your taxidermist, 100 bucks.

Yep. And that's without calling around. That's just like, they don't even know. I never got, with the internet, you could probably get pretty targeted. Yeah, Facebook, there's all kinds of- Find the guy that really wants it. Yeah, there's all kinds of Trapper to taxidermist.

You can start like a bidding war for it. Like if you get something really awesome and you put it in one of these like trapper to taxidermist Facebook groups. Oh really? Like yeah you could start a bidding war on some of that stuff. So do you sell anything into the trade like into the normal market trade? No I don't. I've never sold to a firm. So you're divorced from the market? Yeah I do my own thing. I get everything dried, sent off to the tannery and I sell it in my Etsy store.

What tannery do you use? Sleepy Creek in Iowa. They're, they're kind of, kind of new. Um, but they do a fantastic job and really good pricing. Do you ever use a Moyle mink and tannery? I haven't. Yeah.

Um, I went right to Sleepy Creek. Um, cause they're, they have very, very competitive pricing and I like that. All right. Good. I'm in it for the profit margins. Yeah. So everything you catch, you, you sell wall hangers, skulls, and you have enough of an outlet where you never get excess that you got to go dump into the market. Nope. No. Yeah. Cause I'm, I'm trapping all on public. I'm doing it in my very limited

free time outside of work. Um, so I, I can only run like a dozen sets at a time. Um, that's still fun as hell. So much fun. Um, yeah, so much fun. And yeah, so every catch to me is like, it's a big deal. And I don't, I don't usually get into, if I get into double digits on any one species, that's like a really solid year. So it's nothing I don't, I don't usually get into, if I get into double digits on any one species, that's like a really solid year. So it's nothing I can't handle myself. So even right now, like the way cat prices got kind of crazy this year, and some people think that they overbought, I don't know why, for some weird ass reason, I follow fur markets very closely. I never understand why.

Well, it's really interesting. There's so much nuance. Yeah. It's a hobby of mine. It's like hobby of mine. It's like the stock market. Well, no, I can see that. There's like a relevance argument to the stock market, but for me to follow for prices, it's just like it makes zero sense. I'm just into it.

Anyways, there's suspicion that people overbought. Yeah. I could like overpaid on cats, but cats got crazy. So, but even then you can still do better. I don't want you to give all your trade secrets. You can even with crazy cat prices, you can still do better not selling in the cat market. I would say if you're not in one of like the high desert kind of States, Oh, where they have like that crazy long fur, big white belly, nice spots. Like Kansas cats, uh, were like a little too far east. Like a middle tier cat.

Yeah, but amazing spots on a lot of them. Um, like whenever someone says, oh, the cats here aren't spotted like that, that's not, that, that's bullshit because they're, they're out there. Like it might be different percentages of ones that are super spotted, but like everywhere has spotted cats in there. And part of the reason why I know that for certain is running this statewide camera survey. The number of just like unbelievably spotted cats that I'm seeing on these cameras.

Like it's a pretty even mix of like the really like sandy kind of plain ones and super spotted ones and like almost everyone I talk to, like when I catch a super spotted cat, they're like, Oh man, that's crazy for around here. Like we don't get them like that. And I'm like, they're there. Yeah. Gosh, it's making me just irritated, man. Yeah. Um, when I get buried in twin. Gosh, you're making me just irritated, man.

Yeah. When I get buried in Twin Lakes Cemetery, my grave's gonna say, he should have been a cat trapper. It's not too late. They're straightforward. If you can find- I've got a couple, but I mean really just doing it all the time, all day. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, God. I am pretty jealous of the high desert trappers that are just like it hits that certain day of the season and they get up in the mountains and they don't come down for like a month, month and a half with like a whole truckloaded, just beautiful, like $800 cats. But yeah, for me, like you've got some nice looking cats. I know Trapp or Kate. Yeah, I know I've been I feel very fortunate to have gotten the ones that I have they're beautiful But those are those are taxidermy market cats Those are not fur market cats. I don't think I've gotten I haven't gotten one yet that I was like

Oh that would do really well in the fur market. They just don't have the belly for it So tell people where to where to how do they go find your market? Oh yeah. So I'm on Etsy, Little Shop of Firs is my shop name. So cute. Old Trapper Kate's Little Shop of Firs. There you go. And you got, so you got nothing, like no sewn goods. I do sometimes.

Okay. I've just kind of fallen behind in that. Since I started the Turkey Project, it's a lot to keep up with. So I haven't done quite as much, uh, like pillow making and stuff. Um, but I do have many unfinished pillows

that, uh, once this survey season, once the summer season kind of dies down a little bit, I'm going to get, yeah. And once my furs come back from this season, cause I have a, a big, a big shipment that needs to go out. I have two more beaver pelts of flesh and I want to send it out all in one shot. So I'm waiting to get that done.

So you're going to do some more beaver pillows and stuff? Yes, for sure. Yeah. And I got I'm torn because I do want to make myself a blanket. And so I don't I'm not sure how many beavers I want to give up. Have you seen me and Seth's beaver blankets? I haven't seen I've seen pictures. Oh, but yeah and Seth's beaver blankets? I haven't seen, I've seen pictures. Oh. But yeah, yeah.

That's the most favorite thing I own, I think. Yeah, oh my gosh. Yeah, my wife is like largely indifferent. I mean, when I'm gone hunting, she doesn't know where I'm at or what I'm hunting for kind of things, you know? Largely indifferent. When I put the beaver blanket,

that, she's like, that is badass. Yeah. Yeah. Like all the things, anything I've ever brought home. I just got her a full muskrat bomber jacket, which she, I got her at the end of the season, but she likes it. But like the beaver blanket, she's like,

like work of art, you know, loves it. Just amazing. It's the only thing I never have to, cause otherwise she'll take a lot of time, she'll take my stuff, like put it somewhere. Yeah, scroll it away. But she just squares the beaver blanket out and lays it out.

Oh, that's awesome. It was good, it was a good call. It's beautiful. How many did we put? Because me and Seth had 50 beavers. Oh wow. Is that one year? It was during COVID, man.

We were, I don't know. Yeah. Just cranking on it. You guys hung out. We got a lot of beavers during COVID. It might we were, I mean. Just cranking on him. You guys hung out. We got a lot of viewers during COVID. I can't miss those days. It might've been like a fall,

it might've been like, no, I wish the pandemic was coming. It was amazing. Yeah, exactly. It's like two years of like hunkering down. Yeah, so I was still in school at the time and all the classes went online. And I'm like, I cannot sit in front of my, dude, I would take my phone because I'm like, I have to just like be in the zoom call.

Like I can't just be not there all the time, but I would put it on, on zoom on my phone and tuck my phone into my waiters and I'd just be out there beaver trapping the whole time. All my lectures going and they'd like kick us into like little groups to do some kind of a, some kind of like little like side assignment. And I'm like, Hey guys, um, I'm a little indisposed right now. You're going to have to do some kind of a, some kind of like a little like side assignment. And I'm like, Hey guys, I'm a little indisposed right now. You're going to have to do this by yourselves. All the, all the, all the bad parts, notwithstanding there were aspects of it, of like a lot of camping, a lot of beaver trap.

And anyways, we had 50 and we like kept some primo. We kept some premiere ones had those two blankets made, still had a lot left over and those are big blankets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how many went into one. Oh, I want to say-

That was going to be my question is what's the beaver amount per blanket? Well, it depends on the size of the blanket, obviously. Do you guys have like throw blankets or is it like a comforter? No, no, no. Full blankets. Full comforter. Okay. No, no, no. They're like, there's six feet by six by five, maybe. I don't know. Okay.

Big. Yeah. Six by six. And they're like strip. It's like strips. He let them all out. You know what that means? When you let them out, you caught them.

You caught them so that one beaver makes a big long piece. Gotcha. And then there's like, there's literally miles. There's miles of thread. Yeah. How do you do that? Wow. You like cut it like,

because you have less seams. Like corn and apple kind of a thing? No, it's like you, you explain it on the phone. I didn't, I was doing one of those things that I tried not to do. That's what I was like, yeah. Like you go in like a spiral.

Yeah, like do you spiral it? Microphone. Do you spiral it? He told me and I did the thing I don't like to do. Yeah, like you go in like a spiral. Do you spiral it? Microphone. Do you spiral it? He told me and I did the thing I don't like to do where I acted like I understood. This would have been a good opportunity to not do that. You've been doing so well. I was like uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. In my mind I'm like I can't picture it. It's a common thing in furs. What it does is you gives you, it's very labor intensive, but you take a wide, you take a wide fur and it makes it that you can then sort together and it gives you a big long strip of you are sewing you're making these like, you're making like a type of panel. I see. Yeah. And the panels are very long and homogenous.

So you want these long homogenous panels. So then you can line the furs out. Let's say they're not uniform, like every animal, they're all different, but you kind of let you arrange them where maybe there's like a reddish, you take your reddish ones, and the reddish around the edge,

and it has a gradual fade to a dark, and then it'll gradually fade the other way. I think if they were all exactly the same, like that's the thing with ranch mink, why ranch mink became a thing is like, every mink's huge, and every mink's the same, and you don't have the variability to deal with, but it's a way to like make big long panels that are homogeneously colored.

But those individual panels are stitched quite a bit. Yeah, well he told me and I'll say who did it. He did a beautiful job. He's not looking for work. Don't even bother calling him. Clifford's Critter Creations, Don Clifford. Not looking for work. You have to beg him.

Call him, beg him if you want. He's doing, oh man, I shouldn't have said it. My next thing is I'm doing a raccoon, full raccoon blanket. And I'm doing a full Kyle blanket. Nice. Raccoon is so underrated. He wants 18. Oh, okay. He wants 18 good ones.

Okay, yeah. Oh, that would be so easy in Kansas. Same size. I'm sure it's, well, how's the raccoon combination? It's easy anyway. Yeah, I was going to say it's probably easier too. But the problem is, I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. so easy in Kansas. I'm sure it's, well, how's the raccoon combination? It's easy anyway. Yeah, I was gonna say it's probably easier too. The problem is the bottleneck is Don sewing

three miles of thread together. Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't have a machine. I do it all by hand. So the concept of a blanket is intimidating, but I do really want to do it. You know who you should be buddies with? Are you buddies with Heather DuVille? No, so I've never actually interacted with her,

but super interested. Like she's like right in my wheelhouse. Yeah, she's working with like coastal northern stuff. Different critters, but you guys should talk shop. I'm looking at her power washing setup like, oh, please, I wish. No but you guys should talk, shall we? I'm looking at her power washing setup like, oh please, I wish. No, you guys should talk a little shop. Yeah, I don't think my neighbors would appreciate me blowing a bunch of a beaver fat out all over the...

Well, she's gotten very sophisticated about sewing. So she used to sew needle and thread and got with the machines and like has gotten sophisticated about the sewing. Yeah, I need to get, I definitely would not describe myself as a sophisticated fur handler. Sophisticated trapper. Yeah, I mean, I got to think about it.

I'm like, man, this was only, I only started in 21, I'm only four years in of like completely self-taught and there's so much to learn. Oh, it's the most bottomless pit. Yeah. It's the most bottomless pit. Yeah, arguably, yes. It's the hardest part.

There's constantly new techniques coming out. Yeah, and between like the actual like... New tools and... Yeah, between like the actual like trapping and then the fur handling and the tanning and I tried to do tanning myself and that took a little bit too much apparatus to get everything actually broken the way that it needed to be. You can't scratch the surface. God no. So yeah, so I started sending to a tannery. Okay, so the little fur shop on Etsy. Little shop of furs on Etsy. And it is quite dry right now,

but you're low on product. Low on product, because I don't have my dermastids and I'm waiting. I sold out pretty much all of the furs from last season and I'm waiting on the next round to be back from the tannery. So I'm gonna get to work when I settle down from this summer turkey season.

Good luck. Thanks for coming on. And I'm gonna do it. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, and hope when you get your fur shop I was going to do it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah. And hope you, when you get your first shot, where you filled it, empties back out again. Yes.

Hope so. Maggie, what are you working on that people are going to be most excited about for, for journalism type stuff? Most excited about, I think mostly we're just trying to stay on top of all the crazy policy stuff that's happening. It seems like, you know, there's a, there's a new executive order every other day.

It's impossible to follow. And... Well, hard to follow. It's difficult. And, you know, things are getting snuck into the budget bills, like selling off public lands in Nevada and Utah and the dark of night. There's just shady shit going on right now. And we're doing our best to stay on top of it

and to get it out to the audience so everybody else can stay on top of it, call their representatives, make a fuss, because that's pretty much the only way we're going to keep our public land secure and our wildlife protected and all that. So you know it might not be the most exciting stuff to read but I think it's the most important stuff to read. You put a lot of energy into that just trying to track it.

If people followed like how dizzying it was to follow the tariff situation, just like how rapidly evolving it continues to be. Like if you imagine with the wildlife world and the public lands world, it's been as chaotic, as hard to follow. And Pat Durkin.

It's just a really rapidly changing environment. Pat Durkin just wrote an article about how tariffs are impacting hunters and anglers. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, it's impacting everyone in every which way. But yeah, it's, to the point you made, I mean, it's happening so fast and there's so much happening all at once. Like there's these water monitoring stations from the USGS that now have to be shut down this summer all across the country.

The USGS doesn't totally understand like what's going on with that, how that's gonna like affect smaller, you know, water monitoring stations on individual rivers. It's just, there are so many changes that are happening without too much public comment, too much, is this a good idea? They're just being written in and we're going from there.

So trying to stay informed is really important right now. Yeah, it is. One of the things that I've liked least is the sense that a lot of the management decisions aren't coming from the agency heads and the people that are familiar with the policy. And so it has a, some of it winds up having a kind of ham handed, machete like quality to it. And that's why you see things get reversed.

Like the federal firings that happened too high up. There was no good reason all those people should have been fired. So. And then there's people that are like, dude, if you made it easier for me to get rid of people, I got a big list of people I get rid of, but my hands are tied and like, talk to me about cuts. Yeah, it's just like, I know what I know where the problems are and you're not hitting the problem right.

Wow. That's been frustrating and and that's happening, you know with Jordan wrote an article about this. I think it was Jordan but the the zero based budgeting for environmental policy it's it's looking at all of these things like the migratory bird act the Water Act, and it's going through that and saying that we need to look into everything that carries these acts out,

and they have to be, you know, you can either keep them going for five years or we have to like totally overhaul things. And it's like, I think it's asking to do too much at one time, like look at where there's issues, look at individual agencies, ask them to pinpoint where there are things that need to be fixed.

Not just say, here's this whole list of everything, let's swipe this down and start from zero. Because a lot of those acts were made for a reason. A lot of those acts were made for a reason. Yeah. Yep. It's like, what happened? Wow. Wow.

Uh-oh, you're never gonna hear the end of that. Wow, even if my phone's on silent. Dirty dog. The alarm still goes off. Oh, that's good. Sorry about that. It's like, I don't wanna to beat a dead horse in this one. It's not a dead horse, it's a living horse.

You look at- It might have a busted leg. I was gonna say, it's a little gimpy, but it's there. If you look at how sort of like expertly, expertly executed things around the border were and how like quick and sort of like, wow, how'd that not happen a long time ago, right? And certain other things that have happened

with the administration has been like, where it feels like expert, right? And motivated and expert. I just think a lot of things around the land management agency just hasn't felt like it's coming from the most educated perspective. And like really, like I wish things were happening at a level where you had reform minded insiders

that were doing things in a slower, more thought out way. Cause I think we're gonna do things and then we're gonna realize that we've made big, costly mistakes. Especially around a lot of fisheries management issues and other things where you're gonna do a thing and then a couple of years are gonna go by and you've made like a very expensive mistake.

Yeah. And then need to throw money at it because you're killing industries. Costs and jobs. 100%. Now stay on it. cost jobs. 100%. Now stay on it. Working on it. I've been getting articles sent in to me while I'm sitting here. I actually, I got some, you know, we were talking about the turkey in the graveyard earlier. I just had a writer send me one in. This guy got pulled over, had a live turkey in the back of his car.

Oh. It was wounded. He shot it, but he was driving around with a live turkey in the trunk of his car. Did he know that it- Well, Corinne and I talked about this yesterday. Resurrected? It was a different person. Because I've seen before where like a deer got hit by a car and they loaded it up and it was just like knocked out and then it stands up in the bed.

Oh, we've had that. I had that when I was a kid happen to us. No, because this guy got pulled over like the next day I think. I was just quickly reading this. He had shot it. Yeah. He had a turkey and a squirrel in the back. And then- Was the squirrel alive? What a spread. From my understanding understanding the squirrel looks pretty dead in the picture turkey you can tell the turkeys live it's looking at

you and then so he gets a ticket and then he gets pulled over like the next day or something driving a different truck and he's got two dead turkeys still no license or nothing that he shot shot with a.22, which it's illegal to hunt turkeys with a.22 in his state. So. Was he cemetery hunting? I haven't heard anything about that. Was it old church or was it cemetery? I did. I was reading about the cemetery and it was right next to an old church. Every time. Double whammy there. I'm giving out one of my best tips on here. Spot burning.

Spot burning the whole country. I recently came across an Instagram account of this dude. He's like, I think he's a fishing guy up in like Washington or something, but he has a pet turkey he takes in the boat with him. I saw a video, he was halibut fishing and like he pans over and his turkeys like in the boat gobbling and it's's like real enough to hell. But it was like the coolest. If you go way back in our archive, we have a episode called the bronze back in the Whiffle ball bat. And it was an expert turkey caller named guys up and he grew up with a turkey and he would call that Turkey in and then he'd whap it with a whiffle ball bat.

A whiffle ball bat? To disincentivize it from coming in. And then he'd call it in again. Cause he was like, he wanted it to be like, getting tricked is bad. Yeah. Not hard. Okay.

He'd just alarm it. No, it was just pet turkey. It was like a rolled up newspaper on the nose. Yeah, like hard. Okay. He was just alarming. No, it was just pet turkey. It was like a rolled up newspaper on the nose. Yeah, like just pet turkey. Okay. He wanted it to be the, like, he wanted it to be not wanting to get duped. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

And that's how he learned to call. That was his version of putting a hunter orange collar on a pet deer. He explains the whole process. Yeah. Like if you, you know, I don't know. In the old days, when your dog did something bad, you'd give it explains the whole process. Yeah. Like if he's, you know, I don't know. In the old days, when your dog did something bad, you'd give it a little.

Yeah, a little whap. I'm not trying to hurt it, but the dog's like, Yeast, right? Not gonna do that again. I spaced out. I thought you meant he was like hunting the turkey with a whiffle bat. I was like, that's gonna take a lot of work.

Yeah, I was gonna say, like, I can't even be mad about that. He'd hide, call it in, and then scare the hell out of it. So a while later when he called in, the turkey's like a hunted turkey, he's like, man, I don't want, I wanna go over there. I mean, there's turkeys over there,

but what I don't want is for that to be the guy with the bat. And that's how he became really good at calling turkeys, because he kept fooling that bronze bat who was paranoid. Wow. Oh, so he wasn't trying to keep the turkeys safe from other hunters. He was trying to make a challenge for himself. He was trying to make a challenge.

Oh. He was trying to make a challenge. Like if I went out, I could go out. Like you could probably, if you had a handful of corn and every time you called, you gave that turkey a handful of corn, he's going to become real easy to call in Yeah, yeah, but if you hit him with a bat

Yeah, a love tap with a wiffle ball bat. He's gonna get tough Yeah, like the same scenario of a turkey gets missed a couple times in actuality. That's bad biology. He hears it He's like not this time. Yeah, he's like I'm not going over there man like that Thanks everybody. Yeah. Appreciate everybody coming on. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Listen to Lake's podcast. Yeah, Listen to Lake's podcast. Yeah, please do. It's out today because this episode will drop on June 9th. He is going to be the missing link between biology and policy and human dimensions. Oh wow.. I appreciate it. Very low-rack.

No pressure. You can go on and leave a little review. That might be nice. Yeah, type that in on Apple, yeah. That's a T-shirt right there. There you go. All right, thanks, everybody. Steve Ronella here. The American West with Dan Flores is a new podcast production on the MeatEater podcast network.

It's hosted by author and historian, Dan Flores, who happens to be mine and our own Dr. Randall's former professor. By focusing on deep time, wild animals, native peoples in the West's unique environments, Flores will challenge your understanding of the American West and he will help to explain why it is the way it is today. I count Dan Flores as a friend. We do not agree on everything, but he has had a massive impact on my understanding of American history and I invite you to get challenged by him in the same way that I have.

Catch the premiere of the American West with Dan Flores on Tuesday, May 6th on the Meat Eater Podcast Network. Subscribe to the American West with Dan Flores on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Dan and it will stretch your brain all out. And I mean that in a very good way. This is an iHeart Podcast.